Rajya Sabha clears Bill banning e-cigarettes, Oppn points to conventional tobacco

The law categorises production, manufacture, import, export, transport, sale, distribution, storage and advertisement of e-cigarettes as cognisable offences. Any contravention of the law will be punishable with imprisonment of up to one-year, or a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh, or both. For any subsequent offence, it provides for imprisonment of up to three years along with a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh.

Twenty-eight MPs spoke on the Bill, which was passed without any amendments. A statutory resolution by CPI(M)’s K K Ragesh, opposing the Ordinance route taken by the government, was not approved.

Responding to apprehensions regarding the government’s motive, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan assured the House that there are no “vested interests” or “ulterior motives” behind the legislation. “Our intentions are absolutely pious and very clear that we want to nip this problem in the bud itself,” he said, pointing out that only 0.02 per cent Indians use e-cigarettes.

Justifying the government decision to impose the ban through an Ordinance, the minister said it was the “need of the hour”. “We wanted to implement it because we knew that big companies had planned everything… They were just going to start their manufacture,” Harsh Vardhan said.

On Monday, members of the Opposition alleged that the Bill was brought under pressure from the tobacco companies since e-cigarettes could hurt their market share. “It seems like it’s okay to have cigarettes and tobacco products, but not e-cigarettes. What is it about e-cigarettes that you had to bring in such a law? Please let us in on this secret,” Congress MP Digvijaya Singh said.

“If the idea is to address health problems related to consumption of tobacco then all tobacco products should be banned. Why just e-cigarettes?” asked Ravi Prakash Kumar of Samajwadi Party.

The minister replied, “In a country as vast as India, you see once a particular product has a very big consumer base and social acceptance, it is, in fact, very, very difficult to ban it… Once you have a very huge consumer base… we are not able to do it (implement ban) for cigarettes, for so many things, because 28 per cent of the people are involved with that.

“People are attributing all sorts of motives like we are being governed by the tobacco lobby. All my life, I have fought against the tobacco lobby,” he said.

Opposition members also questioned whether a blanket ban was the right way since the prohibition of alcohol in Gujarat and Bihar had no effect on the supply of the banned substance.

Nadimul Haque (TMC) said the mandate of the Bill should be extended to all tobacco products including gutkha and pan masala. Vijila Sathyananth of the AIADMK said the government should ban all kind of cigarettes.